[Stoves] Jatropha in TLUDs

Fri Jan 21 05:20:05 CST 2011

Boston et al,

You asked about using J seedcake as fuel, and referenced Diligent in Tanzania.  I'm not sure if Rudd or others from that company are on this list, but here's a bit of perspective.

Our nonprofit Pamoja Inc works along side Diligent in a Jatropha promotion project in Tz that is run by Parnters for Development with fuding from US Dept of Ag .  It's more like 'parallel play' than direct cooperation, as we have different approaches: whole J seeds vs pelletizing J seedcake.  Both approaches are using TLUDs of different designs.

Diligent has not yet found a way to cleanly combust J seedcake, a bi-product of its commercial J oil processing and export business.  The new idea being tested in this project is to extract J oil with screw expellers, combine the J seedcake with rice hulls that were run thru hammer mills, make pellets of the mix and use them in a TLUD. That TLUD is designed by TZ resident Bjarne Laustsen. 

The approach of Pamoja and our sister agency Jet City StoveWorks is to vaporize whole unprocessed J seed in a natural draft TLUD designed to deal with the gaseous hydrocarbons of oilseeds. This work was done with an assist from Paul Anderson, whose abiding affection for TLUDS and curiousity for any fuel burned therein is well known to you all.

The J seedcake pelletizing efforts are still in early stages at the moment -- machinery waiting to clear customs in Dar -- so no performance data is available.  Apparently preliminary burns of pellets similar to those that they plan to make in large quantity were hopeful.  Any of you with pelletizing experience are most welcome to contrubute ideas! 

We (Pamoja and Jet City StoveWorks) are further along. JCS has been working on stove design and testing since early September and their TLUD has had impressive results.  We will present findings at ETHOS next week and discuss the challenges of exploiting this ancient-but-brand-new source of domestic energy.

This project has organized 363 producer groups of some 20,000 J growers -- expanding to 30,000 by 2012 -- so we sure better come up with a viable cookstove SOON.

See some of you in Redman,

Jonathan  (I will use just my first name to avoid any possible confusion with the 'real' Otto)

P.S. Crispin:  With all the attention J is getting in RSA you should not have any problem getting seedcake locally.

From: bostonnyer at gmail.com
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2011 03:20:55 -0700
To: stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org
Subject: Re: [Stoves] (no subject)

Crispin, 

I'm located in the US (Colorado).  We're actually having difficulties importing seedcake from Guatemala, where our research is being conducted.  To the best of my knowledge, the closest source of Jatropha seedcake would be Diligent Tanzania (jan at diligent-tanzania.com or ruud.van.eck at diligent.nl), who are currently trying to briquette the material with an automatic press.  

It sounds like Dr. Anderson has found a way to burn the seeds, which is most excellent, but it would also be beneficial to burn the waste material after the oil extraction process.  Maybe with a similar TLUD?  As you know, Jatropha projects are springing up everywhere, so it could be very influential...

Cheers,
Boston

On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 1:57 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <crispinpigott at gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Boston

Can you send me some jatropha seed cake?

In fact, where are you? If it is more convenient, you can send it to SeTAR in Johannesburg and I will deal with it there.

It is hard to believe there is no easy way to burn it. 

Thanks
Crispin

From: stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Boston Nyer
Sent: 20 January 2011 15:39

To: Discussion of biomass cooking stoves
Subject: Re: [Stoves] (no subject)

Hi Richard,

I have a related question to this discussion, which I think is interesting.

At CU, we have a Jatropha project that you fielded some questions about a few months ago.  As I'm sure you've heard, Jatropha seedcake does not burn well, not even close.  So, one of our questions now is:  what can we do with this waste stream this is both useful and desirable?

One approach we will test is to carbonize the material and for biochar briquettes (and a water filter media, etc.).  However, I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment on biochar briquettes.  What is your opinion if the ag-waste doesn't burn well normally?  It still seems a bit contrived, eh?

I'm looking forward to hearing your perspective.

Cheers,

Boston

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-- 
Boston Nyer
Graduate Student
Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering
University of Colorado at Boulder
(585) 503-3459

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